


Designated Survivor

by padmerrie



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-27 00:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14414157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/padmerrie/pseuds/padmerrie
Summary: After choosing to wait for the Imperials to rescue him from the moon over Geonosis, Kallus finds himself in the unlikely company of a band of traders who offer him safe passage home, but at a price. This story fills in the gap between the events that take place in "The Honorable Ones" and Kallus's return to the Empire.





	Designated Survivor

Kallus’s eyes shot open.  Something had woken him. But, in an instant, all concern for what exactly had jolted him from his slumber was directed at the large purple beast sleeping next to him.   _On_ him, in fact.  And rather loudly, too.  Great, rumbling snores echoed off the walls of the cavern he and his unlikely counterpart had taken shelter in for the night.  Kallus frowned down at the furry head nestled on his shoulder, quietly thanking his stars for surviving the night. Freezing to death and being found by the Empire in such an utterly humiliating state was far from the dignified end he had hoped for himself.  He wasn’t sure how he hadn’t noticed Zeb using him as a human pillow until now; the Lasat wasn’t exactly known for his modest size. Or for his smell, he thought, catching a whiff and feeling slightly ill.

As though awoken by his thoughts, Zeb’s eyes fluttered open.  It didn’t take him long to realize where he was, and more notably, in what state.  Catching the agent’s eye, his expression went from horror to anger in a matter of seconds, but before he could say anything, Kallus was trying to shove him off, attacking the uncomfortable moment as he would any given situation - by brute force.  He was met, predictably, with a significantly more forceful push from Zeb, who’s elbow jabbed him so hard that Kallus was sure the Lasat must have broken it. He moved to retaliate, but at that moment, Zeb had gone very rigid, his head turning up, suddenly alert.  Kallus froze, mid-shove.

And that’s when he heard it.  A low howl growing in the distance. 

“That's a ship,” Kallus said slowly.

Zeb’s ears twitched.  “Yeah… but who’s?” The question hung in the air, as they both strained to listen.  Zeb pushed himself up off the the ground and stepped out of the cavern’s shadows. He turned back to Kallus, extending a hand to him, his expression unreadable.  “Come on,” he said gruffly.

Kallus took it, a snarl of pain escaping his throat, as he allowed Zeb to pull himself off the ground and back on his feet.  Zeb wrapped his arm around his waist, lending himself as support, and Kallus accepted without remark, draping his arm across the Lasat’s shoulders.  They walked up the icy ridge, side by side, and looked to the sky.

“Ah,” Kallus breathed, keeping his voice as impassive as he could, “your friends _did_ find you...”

He watched as the Ghost descended from the sky above them and landed smoothly on a snowy patch aways from the pair.  He felt a dull sinking feeling in his stomach. Up until this moment, he thought he had been sure of who would reach them first.  And yet now, he felt anything but surprised.

“Like I said they would,” Zeb said.  He was grinning, but his voice was unusually mild.  Kallus got the sense that the Lasat didn’t want to come off as overly satisfied about this happy conclusion to their misadventure.   

“You know, we will treat you fairly,” Zeb went on, the sincerity in his voice unhindered by his natural gruffness.  But Kallus was already pulling away. He chuckled softly, his eyes focused on the ground as he spoke. “I'll... take my chances with the Empire… Zeb.”  

Kallus lifted his gaze when he said his name, meeting Zeb’s.  His words sounded hollow, and as soon as he said them, he regretted it.  He knew he was out of his mind, that he was making a mistake. He half-expected the Lasat to tell him just that, to try and persuade him to go with them.  But he didn’t. Instead, Zeb pulled himself upright, looking as striking as one of Kallus’s own men, and putting his hands together, bowed.

Kallus stared, momentarily stunned; and then, without even thinking, he returned the gesture, placing his hand on top his fist still clutching the meteorite and bending forward, his eyes never leaving Zeb’s.  Something passed between them. A respect that, before this encounter, Kallus never would have fathomed could ever reside within him. And yet, here they were standing before each other, warrior to warrior. Survivor to survivor.    

And then, with one last grin, Zeb was gone.

Kallus drew himself back into the shadows and pressed his back against the ridge’s rock wall, out of sight from the Rebel ship.  A shaky breath left his lips. In the distance, he could hear the Ghost crew’s enthusiastic calls to Zeb. The young members of the team chanting his name as they ran to greet him.  The Jedi Kanan’s cool, self-assured confidence of Zeb’s survival. Hera, the Twi’lek, telling him how worried they all were. It was a touching moment, only to be interrupted by the Lothal boy complaining about the cold.  A wave of approval swelled within Kallus as he listened to Zeb quite rightfully, he thought, put the boy in his place.

_Kriff_ , he hated that kid.  

But even listening to Jabba’s - _Ezra’s_ \- excitement over being reunited with his friend, a knot twisted in Kallus’ stomach.  He continued to listen, and soon there was a faint rumbling, the sound of a ship’s engines igniting.  Kallus peered around the side of the ridge to see the Ghost lifting off the ground, and then, soar up into the air.  He watched them fly away until the ship was nothing more than a speck of icy stardust.  

It was done.

How long he stood there, Kallus did not know; but soon the rising sun was casting its light upon him, and the last of the shadows from which he stood melted away.  He continued to gaze at the spot where the Ghost vanished into, the terrible realization of what he had just done slowly sinking in. He peered down at the meteorite clutched in his hand, still glowing bright, throbbing with its warmth, and then back at the sky.  He was on his own. His fate was in the Empire’s hands now. 

Kallus took a couple careful steps back towards the cavern.  A lightning sharp pain instantly reverberated through his injured leg.  However, he continued down the slope, biting it back. The transponder lay where he and Zeb had fallen asleep.  He hobbled over to it, a grunt of exertion shuddering through him with each step. He bent down as best he could and picked it up.  Brushing away remnants of snow from its’ surface, he listened carefully. Static noise emitted from the transponder’s thin rectangular speaker.  Though the frequency was silent, it was at the very least still working.

Kallus clipped the metal box onto his belt and scanned the area.  The sky was a pale mixture of pink and blue now. Sunlight poured through the haze so that every time a gust of wind brushed across the snow, the air hovering above it shimmered.  If it hadn’t been for his current circumstances, he would have thought it quite peaceful. And if there was ever a time to pursue a search for help, it was now. There was no telling how long the weather’s respite would last.  He couldn’t just sit there and wait for the Empire. He needed to move fast.

Or slow, as it turned out.  Kallus’s injured leg granted him little forgiveness when he set out from the rocky ridge, nor did the moon itself.  The snowstorm may have passed, but it was still particularly frigid, and while Kallus appreciated having the sun out, it wasn’t doing much to help with the cold.  He crossed his arms tight against his chest, repressing a shiver and thinking grudgingly to himself that he quite preferred the last place the Empire had stranded him.  

Seelos, a desert planet in the Outer Rim and one of the more recent places he had tracked the Rebels.  He had followed an obscure lead there - a distress call from an old Republic clone trooper claiming to have crossed paths with a band of insurgents.  Most Imperial officers would have dismissed it, but he picked it up. Nothing could afford to be overlooked - even the ravings of an out of touch clone.  

Despite the Grand Inquisitor’s failure on Lothal and subsequent demise, Kallus had come out of the whole debacle unscathed and was held by the Empire, somewhat surprisingly, in a renewed light.  He was even commended with a promotion in rank, and soon thereafter Grand Moff Tarkin prepared his departure. Kallus never would have said it aloud, but he was not sorry to see him go. His presence had been overbearing to say the least, and while Kallus was very much accustomed to being under the scrutiny of his superiors, Tarkin’s demeanor had been bordering on oppressive.  His many years of loyalty to the Empire were laudable, yes. But his autocratic tactics left Kallus feeling unsettled. Lately, he found himself plagued with images of Grint and Aresko in their last moments, unsuspecting of the flash of blazing red light about to wield their fates into darkness. He couldn’t shake their faces from his mind.

So when Tarkin announced that he would no longer be overseeing the operations on Lothal, Kallus was relieved.  However, the moment didn’t last long, because there would be a new command instated to overseer of his work on Lothal.

Sith Lord and right hand to the Emperor, Darth Vader.

So yes, really - now - more than ever, _nothing_ could afford to be overlooked.  

And so far, Kallus’s convictions had not led him astray, or worse, in one of Vader’s chokeholds.  But even on Seelos, the Ghost Crew had managed to thwart his certain victory against the clones - and it _had_ been certain.  The old men fought with a deranged determination, a force that seemed to possess the old AT-TE clunker as it barrelled across the sands and straight into the legs of Kallus’s Imperial Walker.  Though, looking back it would have been hard to tell who was more headstrong. Because even after watching the Phantom speed away, he couldn’t stop himself from pursuing them.   

The loss was all his.  He should have left it alone, alerted Konstantine to the Rebels escaping, returned to the fleet to assist.  But something in him had snapped. All his quietly lurking fears, all of the anxiety that had been building up inside him over the last few months, seemed to rip through him with the precision of a borifle, and he was struck with a fury that demanded to be driven through the clones.  He gazed down through the sand-ashened window and wafting smoke at the trooper standing atop his walker and was struck by what he saw. The valor in the clone’s eyes, preserved all these years in an aging shell of the former glory he once was, still there. These were not fallen soldiers; they were discarded men.  Kallus more than pitied him. He _feared_ him.  He drew himself up, his eyes still fixed on the trooper shouting below, fists driven into the air, demanding the end he had been bred for.  Kallus would give it to him. He would show those clones why he persisted where they perished. Otherwise, his fate would be no different than theirs.    

Well, he mused grimly as he dragged his injured leg through the snow, where was he now?  

Kallus pushed the thought from his mind and forced himself to think of nothing but the path before him.

However, the morning passed and the white vastness in front of Kallus was as empty as ever.  Every now and then he would stop and press the transponder to his ear and listen, but nothing ever changed.  Still working, still very much silent.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been traveling, but at some point it he was no longer able to ignore the ache in his leg or the worsening weather.  What had a began as a powdery flurry about an hour earlier was rapidly becoming an onslaught of heavy ice. Kallus stopped and peered over his shoulder.  His tracks were already difficult to make out as great gusts of wind gathered the snow and scattered it across the moon’s icy surface, erasing his path back to the ice ridge.  The trail would be gone in a matter of minutes. Kallus made to turn around, then without warning, his knee buckled under him and he collapsed.

He did not move, the snow beneath him soft and comforting to his aching body finally at rest.  He closed his eyes, head buried in the crook of his elbow, and listened to wind roar, felt the icy snow dance across his fallen body unaware of his presence.  A certain numbness spread through his paralyzed form. He let it run its course, felt himself slipping away, and he knew.

_The Empire wasn’t coming._

A warm pulse in his hand pulled him back moments later and his eyes fluttered open.  Slowly, Kallus lifted his head as best he could and grimaced through the veil of snow relentlessly whipping past his face at the glowing rock still clutched in his outstretched hand.  

His eyes widened.  Beyond the meteorite he could have sworn he saw something flicker through the white sheet, only to have vanished a split-second later.  He remained very still, eyes straining, concentrating on the spot. Maybe it was a trick of the eye or….. No. There _was_ something up ahead.  The dark mass revealed itself once again and a shudder of hope ran through Kallus’s chest.  He wasn’t sure, but it looked more defined than a rock. More like…. a ship. There was only one way to be certain.

Kallus pressed his eyes shut in a moment of silent resolve, his body already protesting what was about to come.  Then, with the meteorite still in his right hand, he bent his arms back so that both hands were placed squarely by either side of his shoulders.  He bowed his head down, nose inches away from the snow, and with a final bracing breath, pushed himself off the ground in one swift motion.

The pain was unlike anything Kallus had ever experienced before.  But he remained upright, even with the brutal wind cutting right through his armor, threatening to knock him over.  Excruciating as it had been to pull himself up, the hard part was still ahead of him. The corners of his mouth twitched at his first step, a cry of agony snarling in the pit of his throat, but his lips remained locked shut as though frozen by the cold.  

Entirely exposed to the storm raging around him, snow swept into every possible open crevice of his uniform, chilling him to the bone.  There was little he could do but raise a protective arm over his face to shield himself from the shards of ice whipping past his eyes, blinding him.  Every couple of steps, he’d squint through the swirling white blanket making sure he was on the right path, until finally, Kallus stopped, peering out across his lowered arm, mouth gaping slightly.     

There, only a few yards away, was the unmistakable outline of a ship.  

It was as though someone had injected Kallus with a shot of bacta.  He took a generous stride forward, eyes fixated on the ship growing more solid with each fevered step he took.  It was impossible to make out any visible markings, but it certainly did not belong to the Empire. Up close, it appeared to be a perfectly ordinary starship, no bigger than the Ghost.  

Kallus slowed his pace, panting slightly, as he approached it, studying the outside.  He raised a gloved hand and let it travel across the body of the ship as he made his way toward the back, his fingers tracing the steel paneling for any outline of an entry point.  It was safe to assume that anyone who would have come to this desolate moon would not have bothered with any security precautions. Ducking somewhat awkwardly under the engine thruster, he found himself inspecting the back of the ship, both hands lifted above his head now, feeling for anything that would unlock the boarding ramp.     

It took several minutes, but then finally, Kallus’s fingers grazed a circular indentation tucked away under the hull.  He pushed it. There was a soft hiss and backing away, he watched as the entryway opened and descended to the ground.

Kallus peered up the ramp.  The inside of the ship was dark.  He waited with baited breath, watching the empty opening, but no one stirred from within.  Looking over both shoulders, he scanned the area around him - one last attempt to make out any sign of life past the thrashing winds.  Nothing, only a sea of white.

There was not much else stopping him.  He gave the ship one last grim look over, then grabbing hold of the nearest hydraulic rod, Kallus hoisted his aching weight onto the metal plank and began to climb, gripping the horizontal piping as he went along the slippery slope in measured steps.  Once at the top, he stopped and surveyed the inside the ship.

A narrow, hexagonal corridor extended a generous distance before Kallus, leading to an open entryway at the opposite end.  Two tall ladders stood on either side of him ascending to what appeared to be a second customary level. He frowned, craning his neck to get a better look as to what lay above.  The adrenaline that had surged through him while making his journey through the snow to the spacecraft had extinguished; climbing a ladder with a broken leg so soon after such an agonizing test was a challenge he was none too eager to tackle.  He would explore the main floor first. Wiping a couple wet windswept hairs from his forehead with the back of his forearm, he took a step forward.

A trail of lights immediately sprung to life in succession down the length of the corridor ceiling like dominos.  Glowing blue and dull, they illuminated the passageway only enough to expose the battered, rust colored paneling. Kallus, who had froze the moment the lights had awoken, blinked a couple times, then resumed slowly making his way down the hall, eyeing the newly lit space apprehensively.  The air was noticeably still as though the ship itself was holding its breath. Each step he took produced a loud squelching noise from his ice soaked boots that echoed uncomfortably through the chamber and the tip of his borifle still wrapped as a brace around his leg scraped against the floor.  His only weapon, Kallus reminded himself. If something were to happen, it wouldn’t do him much good trapped against his leg. Then again, there wouldn’t be much of a fight to be had without it supporting him. Simply crumbling to the ground would hardly pass as a bold strategic move to even the dimmest of adversaries.  

Something above him caught Kallus’s eye that pulled him from his thoughts.  In the new light, he could see that the ceiling was panelled with of metal grates.  If he looked carefully enough he could get a small glimpse of the chamber above. He couldn’t make out much, still - but this was of no concern to him at the moment.  Now within the safety of the ship, there was only one thing on his mind.

Kallus reached the archway at the end of the hall and stepped through it.  He found himself standing in the cockpit, but if he hadn’t known better, he would have thought he had walked into an entirely different ship.  The corridor he’d just passed through showed years of indifference, visible even beneath the shadows of the dim lighting. But here the walls were sleek, gleaming silver and white, practically spotless.  The cockpit itself was spacious, shaped like a rounded arrowhead, with four leather-bound chairs running parallel to each other in a v-shape at the center of the ship’s peak. Kallus’s gaze wandered over the pilot console and his eyes narrowed.  A thin smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Taking two steps down, Kallus crossed the deck, brushing past the passenger seats, and was bent over the pilot console, carefully examining the maze of buttons and switches in a matter of seconds.  The soft patter of snow and ice against the windows cradling the helm filled the room, the howling wind now a muffled whisper from within the confines of the ship. Not entirely sure what he was doing, he ran his hand across the switchboard before settling on a large, circular button.  He pressed it and the rest of the buttons immediately sprang to life.

The hair on the back of Kallus’s neck suddenly stood on end and he froze; the ghost of his last breath left his lips and disappeared into the air.  

“Looks like your day is about to get much worse, my friend,” came a voice from behind.  

Clenching his jaw, Kallus swore under his breath.  “ _Karabast._ ”


End file.
